


The Inbetweens

by Hello_Mr_Mustache (UltramarineMaizes)



Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 06:49:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltramarineMaizes/pseuds/Hello_Mr_Mustache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A college AU where Okita is a college student in need of a computer upgrade and Gin is a owner of a small pawn shop.</p><p>Past! Hijioki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Inbetweens

 

Okita lets out a deep sigh. He sits at his desk, resting his head on his hand while he browses Amazon for new hardware parts. This graphics card costs five hundred dollars. Like hell if he has the money for that, even working at his part time gig at the convenience store, he doesn’t make enough to afford luxury goods like this. Heck, he barely makes enough to cover the rent of his apartment. And its a pretty shitty apartment.

But gosh, the card is so nice. It’ll make everything on his custom desktop computer run beautifully. By everything, he means games. Non-laggy first person shooters will be great. Then he can finally destroy that asshole, Hijikata, and take his rightfully deserved top rank in the leaderboards. Yea...it’ll be amazing...Okita snaps back to reality. But five hundred. Good god. Okita faceplants on his desk. Life is so hard.

His phone rumbles on his desk. Okita glances at it from his comfy spot on his desk. He looks to see who’s texted him now. Oh speak of the devil. Said asshole manager texts him asking when he’s coming in for his shift. Right. Work happening now. Responding with a quick, _I’ll come in when you drop off the planet_ , Okita closes his computer, puts on a coat, and heads off to work.

  
\------

 

Hijikata has him working on unpacking boxes at work today. Squinting at the box, he imagines Hijikata’s face on it as he takes his box knife and cuts through the tape. He even mumbles, “Die, Hijikata, die” quietly as he does it. Strangely, it’s really cathartic. But mainly he does it because Hijikata is standing a few feet away, doing inventory, and can probably hear him. It probably makes him really uncomfortable and that is what gives Okita a deep pleasure (because it goes without saying that he is a sadist).

Hijikata slams his pen down on his clipboard. “Shut up! Why don’t YOU die?!”

Okita looks up, blankly, “What? What’s with this sudden outburst, Hijikata? Accidentally pulled your briefs up too high this morning? I’m sorry I have no advice for self-given wedgies.”

Hijikata flicks him off and walks inside to continue his inventory work.

Cool, now he can slack off. Okita smiles and sits down on some unopened boxes. The nice thing about the convenience store is that the alleyway behind it is nice and empty. From here, he can sit and people watch from afar, and usually no one notices. He leans back, reclining a little, so that his back rests on the wall from the building of the store next door. Planning to take a nap, he is about to close his eyes when he notices a small shop across the street down a slightly bigger alleyway. When has that store ever been there? Sitting up, he squints at the sign.

A….pawnshop? He has never seen it before. Curious, he gets up and walks over. Hijikata won’t bother him anyway, now that he’s sufficiently pissed him off for the day.

The bell rings when he walks into the store. Its dark, a bit dusty, but pretty well kept. The tungsten light casts a yellow hue in the room when it stops flickering every five minutes. Shelves line the room filled with things to look at. Okita mindlessly peruses them, when a voice mumbles, “Oh hey a customer...Shinpachi...go help them...I’m busy…”

A short pause happens and then, “Ah, Shinpachi isn’t here today...damn.”

This shopkeep...but then again, Okita is the same when he has casier duty. And casier duty is the worst. Worst than box duty. Good thing Yamazaki takes casier duty and he likes it. Otherwise, Okita’s not sure how the Eleven Seven would be able to pull in its income with him heading the store. He puts down a dusty lava lamp that he was contemplating how to use it as a prank against Hijikata, and heads to the cashier desk.

A messy silver haired guy sits reading a large stack of comics casually picking his nose. “Welcome, valued customer. If there is anything I can do to help, please ask,” He says in monotone while continuing to both read and pick his nose at the same time.

Okita squats down and looks up the guy’s face, which is strangely young for his white hair. Huh, he’s just one of those guys who dye their hair weird colors. The guy finally looks at him, his facial expression is blank, still sitting there with his index finger shoved up his left nostril. Charming.

“Find anything interesting?”

“No, not really,” Okita replies without thinking. But its a lie because he just found something of interest.

“Huh, ok, let me know then.”

Then he returns back to his nose picking. Okita just squats there and watches him. Because for some reason, this guy intrigues him. He can’t really figure out how he ticks and usually Okita prides himself in his skill of easily reading people. He stands up and tries to peek at what comic the guy is reading, leaning in close, when he notices the name tag that is half hidden by the gray hoodie he wears. Gin. Huh. He accidentally notices Gin’s lean forearms, exposed from rolled up sleeves, as he moves his eyes to actually look at the comic. (“Accidentally.”) All the while, the guy just continues what he’s doing, not giving a shit what Okita does.

His butt pocket vibrates. Okita leans back and looks at his phone. Hijikata again. He wants him to organize the shelves in the store and to stop napping on out back. Okita doesn’t respond to this text. He puts his phone back and stretching, reaching up high his shirt rising up exposing stomach a bit on accident. (“Accident.”) If Gin noticed, he didn’t say anything. Okita turns and lazily shuffles out of the store.

 

\----

 

The next few days in between angsting over that graphics card (that beautiful beautiful graphics card), his job (stupid Hijikata), his school work, he finds himself thinking of muscular forearms. Actually how great a particular set of muscular forearms look and how the silver haired owner of those arms just won’t leave his mind. He can’t shake the fascination and between more angsting over that graphics card and plotting Hijikata’s demise, he realizes he can probably pawn something to get him closer to his five hundred goal. Sitting up on his chair in his dingy room (because he’s too lazy to turn on the light plus it kind of keeps his electricity bill cheap), he glances around to see what can be worth pawning.

Geez, he isn’t a broke college student for no reason. A closet full of hoodies and tees. Dirty clothes all over the ground. A shitty bed. A PS3. An Xbox. An arsenal of games. His beloved computer. Okita sighs and puts his head in his hands when he notices his platinum wristwatch. The one his sister bought for him with her hard earned money as a going away present. To celebrate him getting into university and becoming an adult. No. Absolutely not. The last time a guy tried to mug him and steal his watch, that guy was beaten bloody and left in an dumpster. Maybe he’ll try the Xbox. It’s worth a shot.

 

\-----

 

Okita stands in front of Gin. Miraculously, he’s practically in the same position he was a week ago, maybe resting his head on his other hand instead to spice up his life a bit. Finger still shoved up his nose, albeit not the same one congrats to him, now working on another comic.

“Welcome back,” He monotones as he flips a page.

He drops the duffle bag with the Xbox and some games he hasn’t played for a while in front of Gin. He blinks and actually looks up at Okita. Okita notices his eyes are very dark and flat.

“What’s that?”

“My xbox and some games,” Okita says staring back.

“You wanna sell them...or pawn them...or?” Gin sits up a bit.

As much as Okita doesn’t want to admit, he is relishing the attention (Finally! After all the times he’s stopped in in the past week to continue “browsing”, but in fact its just to gawk at Gin. It’s actually kind of an embarrassing number.)

“I want to pawn them,” he says, his face betraying no emotion.

“Hmm,” Gin moves over and looks inside the bag.

Okita watches him and offers necessary replies as Gin examines each article inside and asks him questions. He notices how the muscles in Gin’s shoulders move under the striped thermal he wears today. The forearms are of course exposed and he appreciates them in full. Gin’s hands are on the larger side, long fingered, thin and defined. He also doesn’t deny how great this thermal looks on Gin, since the collar frames his collarbones prominent and pronounced, he imagines what it would be like to-

Okita clears his throat, “So how much do you think this will all be worth?”

Gin looks up at the dingy ceiling, thinking, “Hmm...maybe two hundred ninety? Give or take. How much do you need to pawn? What are you looking to do? Is this for your gaming needs?”

“Wow, how did you know, boss?” Okita responds, it is a bit obvious but he feels a tinge of frustration this guy can read him so easily when he can’t do the same, “I need five hundred.”

Gin leans back and puts his hands behind his head. Unluckily for Okita, his thermal is a bit too long and does not ride up. Damn it. He changes his mind- he hates this thermal. Maybe it’d look better off of him. No, it definitely would.

“Well, this will only give you two hundred ninety...do you have anything else that could push it up?”

“Ah...I guess I’ll need to check back home,” Okita crosses his arms, and looks away. “What a pain.”

Something catches Gin’s eye as he leans forward half standing up. He points to Okita’s wrist, “That looks like something that honestly would be worth five hundred. Or even more.”

“No,” Okita’s eyes flash, he steps back for a moment his entire body rigid. “Not that.”

Gin stares at him with no expression and sits back down, “Or not. It’s cool.”

Okita turns red and stammers out, “J-just hold on to those then, I’ll come back.”

He turns around and walks out.

Walking quickly down the street, Okita scowls, red faced. First off, he’s kind of angry that he reacted in that way. He never acts this way to anyone. It’s embarrassing and not him. And secondly, he’s kind of angry that he reacted that way in front of Gin. Granted doesn’t know him well, but from what it seems the guy is a chill dude, but still it just feels like he’s fighting a losing battle. The fascination, the need for attention...while the guy doesn’t even bat an eye at him. It pisses him off.

He’s so wrapped up in self anger that he jumps when someone grabs his shoulder. His immediate response is to grab the arm and throw its owner over his shoulder. He is about to do so, but then he hears the owner’s voice and he immediately loses the will to do anything violent.

“Hey, don’t you want the money?” Gin holds out some bills to him.

“What?” Okita blinks at the cash shoved in his face.

“Here take it,” Gin pushes the bills into his hands.

Okita blinks and looks down into his hands. And then back at Gin. But he already disappeared in the crowds of people rushing towards the subway in the after work rush hour. So, Okita just pockets the money and goes back to his apartment.

 

\-----

 

Four sixty….Four hundred eighty...five hundred.

Okita stares at the pile bills on his desk. That guy...either he is really shitty at math because this is two hundred and ten dollars too many for what he gave him to pawn or something else. God but the five hundred is here and Okita didn’t have to work extra and starve two weeks for it. He pulls up a browser and looks at the graphics card. The mouse hovers over the add to cart button tentatively.

He could do it. He could just take the good faith Gin had in him and just blow it on this card. He could be totally materialistic and selfish and just do it and get this card and beat Hijikata and be number one. But no matter what he can’t bring himself to click that button, that millisecond of adding a bit of pressure to close the millimeter distance to create that electric command to tell the scripts running on amazon that yes this is the card he wants to buy and he’s pretty much ready to commit. But he can’t do it.

Okita has never thought of himself as a good person. Not someone who would go out and do fundraisers or visit sick people. But he just also isn’t shitty enough that he can just take this money and blow it without a conscience. In fact the more he thought about it, he wondered why Gin did this. And the more he tried to figure it out, it brought him back to square one: he can’t figure out what Gin was thinking. And now he’s pissed again.

Hijikata texts him to remind him to go to work. Grabbing his hoodie and shoving the pile of bills into his pocket, Okita storms out of the apartment.

 

\-----

 

Today he’s on unpacking duty again. But because he’s having kind of a conflicting conscience problem, Okita is just quietly unpacking the contents of the box and moving them to the cart. Hijikata stands quietly nearby, doing inventory.

After a while of silence, Hijikata coughs uncomfortably, “You seem less irritating today.”

Okita says nothing and quietly opens up the next box with a graceful swipe of his boxcutter.

“Even when I totally crushed you yesterday in that round, I thought you’d be extremely annoying today,” Hijikata continues awkwardly.

Okita carefully unpacks the puddings from the cold box.

Hijikata coughs again, “Is there something wrong? If you...want-”

“Nothing’s wrong, Mr. Hijikata,” Okita says the usual taunting inflection missing in his voice.

“...Ah,” Hijikata says.

A moment of awkward silence passes, each one continuing to do their own thing.

“Does this have to do with that pawn shop you keep going to?” Hijikata mutters out of the blue.

It almost sounded like he was talking to himself, but Okita freezes. Apparently that idiot pays enough attention to him to know what is going on. Okita wants to slap himself in the face for being so obvious. Hijikata has his back to Okita, but he’s sure he noticed his reaction.

“I’ve never been, but I hear that the owner is kind of an aloof guy,” Hijikata says hesitantly.

Okita retorts, “I don’t understand what that has to do with anything, Mr. Hijikata.”

Hijikata’s ears redden, “I-I don’t know. I think he’s weird so keep an eye out...or something!”

Hm hm, Okita thinks as he continues unpacking the puddings. He’s at the end of his rope with this situation, having spent a good few days thinking about it, and god...it hurts his pride to say that it might be worth a shot to ask the idiot manager for his opinion. “Mr. Hijikata...what would you do if someone just gave you a bunch of cash out of the blue…?”

“Is that for your graphics card? You still won’t beat me with that thing,” Hijikata replies rather quickly.

“Forget I asked,” Okita picks up the carton and puts it on the cart to push inside.

He gets past the door to the refrigerated storage room when Hijikata says, “Personally, I can’t take charity like that so I’d give the money back.”

Huh. Okita was thinking the same thing. All the workers at this Eleven Seven are all proud guys because they can’t take random gifts of kindness without anything to return. This honor or ego or something just would not sit well in their conscience.

But this validation relieves him a bit and he smiles and pushes the cart into the room, “With that graphics card, Mr. Hijikata, you’ll see the end of your life at the top. I’m going to enjoy watching you fall.”

Hijikata snorts from where he’s standing, counting the bags of frito lay products.

 

\----

 

Okita opens the pawn shop door quietly, bell above the door jingles. He marches up to the front desk this time, without doing a moment of pointless browsing. Then he just stands there and quietly watches Gin who is shockingly reading another comic. But he’s not picking his nose this time. Guess his nostrils are clean from the constant care and attention they get.

“Hey, Boss, you gave me too much,” Okita breaks the silence, digging into his pocket for the bills and placing them in a crumpled pile in front of Gin.

“Oh. Then bring in something worth that amount.” Gin doesn’t show much of an reaction as he blinks and continues reading as if nothing had just happened.

“Just...take it back,” Okita says in an even tone, even though he is starting to get seriously annoyed.

Gin doesn’t say anything.

Normally, Okita wouldn’t give a shit if someone treated him like this. Because he just doesn’t give a shit about people in general, but for some reason when Gin does it, he feels an emotion he’d categorize as deep annoyance. And that feeling isn’t fun to experience. Frustrated, Okita leans in close, probably an inch or two away from Gin’s face, and just quietly waits. Finally, he blinks and looks at Okita.

Okita starts, “I’m not broke. I’m not starving. I’m not in desperate need for this money. I don’t even have a good reason why I need this. It’s really fucking dumb and In fact you know exactly why I need it. So why did you give it to me?”

“Because I know you will pay it back.”

Genuine surprise flickers across Okita’s face, and then he feels even more pissed off, “How do you know that? You don’t even know me. I could have ran off with it and never come back.”

“So then why are you here?”

Okita stares at him, unable to speak for a moment. Gin stares back at him, dark eyes like a blank slate. Completely and utterly unreadable. Okita wants him to do something- _anything_ so that he can stop feeling like a complete selfish materialistic loser in front of this guy and his dead fish eyes. Okita want to punch him, shake him, or do something just to elicit a response. He curls his fist tightly. But then he realises he doesn’t want do any of that.

“I don’t want your fucking charity,” Okita steps back finally yielding, “Give me my duffel.”

Gin blinks a bit, and leans down to rummage underneath the wooden desk. He reappears after a minute and drops the duffel on the top. Okita grabs it and turns to walk towards the door. He closes it roughly, causing the bell to jingle loudly and doesn’t look back. He doesn’t even notice Gin watching him go.

 

\------

 

“Mr. Hijikata…” Okita says quietly on the phone in his dark apartment. Hijikata stays silent on the other end, listening.

Truth be told, he doesn’t know why he’s calling Hijikata of all people. He has the phone numbers of all the other workers at Eleven Seven. Kondo, the branch head who pops over so often that he’s basically part of the group there, would be a better alternative to Hijikata. He would know what to say and everything, but the most important thing is he respects Kondo more.

However, Okita doesn’t know what he’s doing at this point anymore. Calling the person he slept with that one time when he was really bored and drunk last winter seems to be a great idea in a time where he makes all the best decisions.

“I...made a fool of myself…” Okita says quietly.

There is a snort on the other side. “You were always a fool. What makes this time any different?”

“That’s coming from the king of fools,” Okita retorts.

“S-shut up!” Hijikata pauses for a bit and then continues, “Fools do always do foolish things so you shouldn’t worry about it.”

Okita doesn’t respond.

“Your taste in men is really strange you know?” Hijikata says after another moment of silence.

“Yea, I realized after we slept together.”

“You- gah-” Hijikata makes frustrated nonsensical sputtering words. It makes Okita smile a bit.

“I don’t think you should worry about it,” He says when he recomposes himself, “If you like him so much, why not try a redo?”

“Huh,” is all Okita responds and after another moment of silence they both hang up, understanding that the conversation is over.

 

\-------

 

A couple weeks pass. The weather turns colder and people have begun to wear scarves and winter coats on the streets. And finally Okita builds up the nerve to go back in the pawn shop on one of his days off.

Walking in, he loiters around the the shelves farthest away from the front desk. Busying his hands by loosening the scarf around his neck, he browses the merchandise a bit. There’s no one around and he’s guessing Gin is the only one here as usual. (How does this store even get its business?)

“Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

Okita stops, heart taking a leap. He peeks his head out from behind the displays to see a clear view of Gin and his usual, comics and nose picking. He’s wearing a loose cardigan today and Okita’s least favorite thermal in the history of the universe.

“Hey” is all he says. He returns to looking at this doll thing on the shelf with half lidded eyes and a red cylindrical body.

“Got that game some other way, huh?”

“What?”

“The five hundred bucks you needed?”

Oh right. Ha, no not yet. But he somehow managed to save up a hundred fifty from doing a bit of overtime at the shop.

“Something like that,” Okita says, as he casually steps out and walks up to the desk.

God. He might have a serious thing for cardigans and thermals. The forearms are bared again. This is a travesty in the worst way.

“How can I help you today then?” Gin closes the comic and leans back looking up at him.

Okita stares at the closed comic book. They stay like that, in silence for a bit.

“I have a problem...and I think you can solve it.” Okita staring at the comic, leans down to touch the cover.

“Ah.” Gin was still looking at him with his dark dull eyes. “I only offer pawning services in my shop.”

“Well, that’s good because I’m looking for an item and I can’t find it out here...do you have any thing in the back?” Okita looks up at this moment and stares into his eyes.

A small smile appears on Gin’s face, “You wanna come and check it out?”

“Can I?”

 

\------

 

Okita kisses him first, wrapping his hands around Gin’s neck. Gin fumbles around with one free arm to close the door to the storage room and to lock it.

There is no resistance from either, each kiss is wet, sloppy, and open mouthed. Okita can’t get enough of Gin. Gin seems to feel the same way.

“I was kind of wondering when you would ask me,” he says against Okita’s mouth when they break for air.

“Boss, you enjoy watching me suffer, don’t you?” Okita bites Gin’s lip, vengefully.

Gin just laughs against his mouth as they kiss deeper and deeper. Okita pushes him down to the ground, tugging off his scarf, and straddles him. Gin helps him take off his coat, his hands already underneath his tee, exploring the bare skin underneath. Okita shivers with pleasure as he feels Gin’s cold hands brushing over his skin.

Okita breaks their kiss to attack those collarbones, and he relishes every sigh of pleasure Gin releases as he works his magic on them. Gin seems to be into it too since he kisses and touches him with as much ferocity as Okita. He pulls a condom from his back pocket. They move from against the door to a clearing in the middle of the organized storage room, nothing breaking the frenzied harmony they’ve built. Slowly, clothing reappears, scattered across the floor. Their bodies move in sync, the midst of the humid atmosphere accented with the sounds of pleasure, to the rhythmic accelerated pounding of their hearts.

 

\-----

 

Okita finds himself resting his head on Gin’s bicep, just as lean and muscular as the rest of his body, both of them covered by the oversized jacket he wore in earlier as a blanket. He grabs Gin’s other hand and examines his forearm.

“You’ve got a forearm fetish don’t you?” Gin says watching him.

“I think its your fault,” Okita says and he leans in to kiss Gin’s wrist and slowly kiss down his arm.

Okita releases his arm when he’s done and Gin moves it to hold Okita closer. They stay like that for a bit until Okita shifts and jumps up. Gin also sits up, startled.

“Oh.” Okita picks a staple covered in blood out of his back. “Ouch.”

Gin’s eyes widen, “Oh this is why we should have gone somewhere else. Like the floor is full of nails and crap. It’s dangerous! I mean I guess if you don’t mind getting stabbed with a pin or a nail and you are into that kinky stuff then-”

Okita is a bit shocked at the outburst from a guy he thought was unable to emote. But he smiles as he throws the staple over his shoulder and leans in to kiss Gin, who is still going on and on.  He shuts up and kisses back. It’s nice and slow this time. And Okita can savor the taste of Gin this time. When they break, he says, “Then next time, let’s go to your place.”

Gin pecks him back and says, “Sure.”

 

\------

 

“So a redo to you means to sleep with him? What the hell’s wrong with you, you idiot? When I said redo, I didn’t mean repeat what we did!” Hijikata’s angry voice rings clear over the speakers.

“Ah, Mr. Hijikata, unfortunately we can’t do what we did because I’ve currently involved with someone else,” Okita says as he fires his weapon on screen. “You should be happy you were able to sleep with me once.”

Hijikata stammers more sputtering sounds and this is when Okita shoots and killsHijikata’s character. Smiling triumphantly, he leans back.

“You little shit, you should clean your ears. Normal people take people on dates or whatever,” Hijikata curses as the new round starts.

In the end, he was able to save up enough and get that graphics card. It runs as beautifully as he hoped, but Hijikata is still too good for him to beat. Ironically, he spends more time at a place with a certain someone rather than game all the time. But he doesn’t mind this plot twist.

There will always be other ways to crush Hijikata.

 

 

_End._

**Author's Note:**

> It started off with a bang and in the end...I don't even know. I'm sorry it ended like a bad porno and also a little ooc. Ginoki tho!!!!!


End file.
